Newly appointed Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth is
generally liked and respected by agency colleagues, timber
advocates and environmentalists, although some greens worry that he
may not stand firm in the face of pressure from the Bush
administration.

In the wake of last summer's devastating Western
wildfires, the Forest Service is trying to figure out how to
restore the unhealthy, doghair, fire-prone forests created by a
century of fire suppression and indiscriminate logging.

This summer's wildfires are raising questions about
development in the "wildland-urban interface" - places like
Montana's Bitterroot Valley, where Forest Service firefighters are
using all their resources to protect homes and cabins.

With the summer shaping up to be a hot one for fires,
especially in the Southwest, the Forest Service is worried about
finding enough money, firefighters and also avoiding the problems
that contributed to the deaths of 14 firefighters in
1994.

Asbestos-laced dust from a vermiculite mine near Libby,
Mont., has caused illness and death among locals for decades, but
it is only recently that the media - and victims - have called W.R.
Grace & Co. to account.

As traditional logging declines on Montana's Flathead
National Forest, the Flathead forestry project experiments with a
new form of logging that rewards the loggers for restoring sick
forests through environmentally conscious work.